Vibrating Wooden Turtle
Vibrating Wooden Turtles were enemies that débuted in Crash Bandicoot and the Grand Adventure of the Not-Yet-Existent Power Crystals. In still screenshots, they look very much like real non-wooden turtles, but the advent of the motion picture has revealed their vicious lie. Instead, they appear to be skilfully crafted wooden sculptures, which are somehow able to replicate real-life-style turtle locomotion through means of vibration. It is, however, currently unknown what, exactly, enables these terra-pine critters to vibrate. According to an old Tribesanistani folk tale first told by the wise shaman Darles "Chara Chara Boom Boom" Charwin, the vibration is a beneficial genetic trait gradually acquired through the mystical shamanistic practice of "natural selection", though President "Papu Papu" Papupapudopoulos has thankfully stopped this nasty rumour from spreading, for it is a vicious affront to Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. They are bouncy. Appearances I'm Pickin' Up Wood Vibrations (1996) In the aforementioned Crash Bandicoot and the Grand Adventure of the Not-Yet-Existent Power Crystals, Vibrating Wooden Turtles were a relatively common enemy. Non-Vibrating Non-Wooden Bandicoot first encountered them in N. Sanity Jungle, bravely fighting on the side of the Crabpublican Party. They later appeared on Papu Papu's glorious wally walls, because they have sadly mistaken the wall's wood construction and bright colours for that of the females of their species. They are attempting to fuck the wall, you see, by thrusting their hard wood penises at it, in an attempt at sex intercourse. Even later still, Crash saw the Vibrating Wooden Turtles pop up on the New Nativitan Empire's world-famous Interstate I-420, and later the New Nativitafarians' wholly inferior knockoff, where one assumes that they were bred because the stoners, they like the reptiles, for some reason. I can't say I really understand why. I mean, it's not like you can smoke a turtle and get high or anything. Or can you? ...no. No, you cannot. Well, anyway, one should mention that the game heavily took advantage of the Vibrating Wooden Turtles' bounciness. If Crash managed to get the turtles to flip over by entering the Ultimate Turtle Flipping Cheat Code - press X near a Vibrating Wooden Turtle to "jump", then use the Control Pad to manoeuvre Crash's body such that he lands on top of aforementioned Vibrating Wooden Turtle - they would flip over and he could use their tummies like trampolines. It was fun. Bouncing is fun. Bouncing on corpses even moreso. Completely Original New Turtle Enemy Variants (1997) During the year after the first game, it seems that Dr. Neo Cortex's Evolvo-Ray began giving off special evolution-y radiation that only affected Vibrating Wooden Turtles. Vibrating Wooden Turtle Woods would never be the same! The radiation started to give them interesting new features, like eyes made out of metal, which is exactly like wood but somewhat more metallic. By the time Crash Bandicoot 2: The Bully Who Stole Neo's Favourite Tricycle Has Finally Returned It, So Now, Cortex's Trike's Back! rolled around, it appeared as though all the Vibrating Wooden Turtles in the entire Wumparchipelago had mutated into far more formidable variants: Non-Copyright-Infringing Spine-Covered Vibrating Wooden Turtle A blatant ripoff plagiaristic homage to rival Nintendo's famous Spiny enemies from the Super Mario Bros. video electronic game series of the same name. Spinies were uncreative enemies, being nothing more than turtley dudes covered in sharp spikes that protected it from most direct attacks, like an overpowering cologne. In adapting the enemy for its own nefarious whims, Naughty Dog completely missed the point of Spinies. For some queer reason, the Non-Copyright-Infringing Spine-Covered Vibrating Wooden Turtles only had spikes on their sides, and not on their backs. This allowed Crash to still jump on them with as much precision as the mediocre controls would allow. Then, he could use them as trampolines, as always. I don't think there was ever really any use for this, though. EXCEPT FOR WILD AND CRAZY FUN! Non-Copyright-Infringing Buzzy Non-Insectoid Vibrating Wooden Turtle A blatant plagiaristic homage ripoff of rival Nintendo's famous Buzzy Beetle enemies from the Super Mario Bros. video electronic game series of the same name. As the Buzzy Beetle's name implies, it is a powerful turtle-based enemy. Specifically, a powerful turtle-based enemy modelled after Beetle Bailey, star of the eponymous syndicated newspaper comic strip of the same name, whose wartime antics continue to amuse all those Americans who should be dying any day now. (Because they're old.) Once again, Naughty Diggity Doggerz horribly screwed up the enemy in the transition. For some queer reason, they misinterpreted the "Buzzy" part, and put literal buzzsaws in the Non-Copyright-Infringing Buzzy Non-Insectoid Vibrating Wooden Turtles, which made them illegal to jump on. Instead, Crash-tastic had to use his brand-new slidey attack to flip them over. Or you could just kill them with a Spin Attack, but that's considerably less bouncy. How could you deny Crashie-poo his bouncy fun?? Don't you have a heart??? Vibrating Wooden Turtles Go on a Rampage! (1999) After not being present for some lame time-travel-themed game that no one cares about, Vibrating Wooden Turtles made their un-triumphant return in Crashie the Racist. Here, they reprise their role as trampolines in Allegedly Mysterious Caves. Well, actually, they're sort of more like ramps. Um. Ummmmm. They're rampolines? Anyway, they are found exclusively in pairs, which implies that these are actually vibrating Wooden Turtle couples enjoying the only kind of love that God approves of: heterosexual man-and-wife love that doesn't actually involve physical or emotional contact with one another. 'Cuz that'd just be icky and gross. The fact that they are already flipped over when the racers encounter them, combined with the fact that they don't move at all ever except for the naturalistic bobbing of the water, implies that they were brutally murdered, possibly the "mystery" referred to in the track's title. There are no visible exits from the caves, so clearly it's a devious locked-room crime worthy of the master himself, John Dickson Carr. Read all about it, in his upcoming novel from beyond the grave! Last Chance at Vibrating Wooden Glory: FAILED (2004) During the preliminary pre-release planning stages of Super Mediocre Crash 'n' Cortex Game Wherein Power Crystals Serve as Terrible Metaphorical Chinese Finger Trap Devices, Traveller's Tales thought it would be wicked awesome to include the Vibrating Wooden Turtle as an enemy in their game, to fool stupid and gullible thirteen-year-old fans into thinking the game was actually true to the series. Unfortunately, their concept art of the critters went horribly awry. They were completely grey! This caused some fans who saw the artwork to speculate as to whether they were even part of the traditional Vibrating Wooden Turtle species, though other fans speculate that the entire development team was merely colourblind. When they tried to implement the critters into the game itself, things went even awrier. Awry-er? Um. More awry? Ummmmm. Worse. Things went worse. Due to the game's advanced late-gen-PS1-style graphics, it vaguely looked like the turtles were actually walking, as opposed to merely vibrating back and forth. "Blasphemy", thought Executive Producer David Stalker, whilst doing something outrageous yet to be determined! As such, the development team completely gave up on trying to implement the Vibrating Wooden Turtle, and it completely disappeared from the series. Legend has it that one lone specimen of this iteration of the Vibrating Wooden Turtle actually surfaced in one of the game's demos, serving the same role that Charleston, the Conveniently Suicidal Skunk served in the final game. However, there is quite obviously no possible way to prove this. Trivia *This enemy's name is a sly and clever pun on Utica, New York's famed tourist attraction, the Vibrating Wooden Torte Hall, a wildly popular museum exhibiting all the world's finest biodegradable marital aids disguised as innocuous desserts. It is not a particularly large museum. *Curiously, with the partial exception of those corpses in Mystery Caves, Vibrating Wooden Turtles are never found in water, unlike real-world turtles. Instead, they are typically found on land, a characteristic more in line with the less popular real-world reptile known as the "tortoise". Fans have proposed many theories to explain the Vibrating Wooden Turtles' aversion to aquatic liquid water. The most popular seems to be that they recently painted themselves - explaining their unusually bright colours. Presumably, this paint is still wet, so they have to stay out of the water until it dries. Much like real-world women do not like to be interrupted while drying their hair, Crash's turtles attack with a violent rage when their paint-drying rituals are interrupted by inconsiderate bandicoots, a savage satire of the sexual politics of twentieth century America. (Alternately, it could be because the Crashie games they appear in lack water levels, but that's no fun at all!) *According to unconfirmed surveillance reports, Coco Bandicoot likes Vibrating Wooden Turtles a lot. Coincidentally, this writer likes Coco Bandicoot a lot, in what I presume to be the same way! See Also, IF YOU DARE *Platformie the Turtle - Generic thing you can stand on briefly in Generic Thing You Can Play Briefly on One of Three Consoles *Fat Fat Assistant - Hulking Lab Assistant that briefly took up the "corpse trampoline" mantle in Hey, Wait a Second, Where the Fuck Did Brio Go???